


The Arena

by Derin



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Gen, gladiator fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Animorphs wake up on a strange world where they are expected to fight for the entertainment of others. How could they ever have thought they could avoid this science fiction cliche?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Marco notices something strange

My name is Marco.

Now, I know what you're thinking. How does such a cute, well-liked, humble genius like myself end up on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere? Glad you asked. It's kind of a long story.

I don't remember how it started. The first thing I remember was opening my eyes. Something dim, flat, grey and square spread out across my vision. A ceiling. I was lying flat on my back.

I turned my head to the right. Rachel lay next to me, unconscious and sprawled out at a weird angle. Cassie's head rested on her knees. Cassie's overalls were covered in splatters of mud, but as far as I could tell in the dim light, not a speck of it was on Rachel's teen-model outfit. I'm still pretty sure that Rachel is mud-repellent or something. You know, when she's not slicing aliens up with her claws.

To my left were Jake's big, smelly feet encased in big, smelly sneakers. Presumably the rest of Jake was attached. I had to lift my head a little (which hurt) to see the Andalite cadet sprawled out behind him, a red-tailed hawk tucked almost protectively under one arm.

As soon as I moved, Ax's stalk eyes opened. One looked right at me; the other scanned the room. That still creeps me out a little. Only after he'd checked the room did he seem to wake up properly, and open his main eyes. <Marco? Where are we? What happened?>

“Good question.” I sat up, gritting my teeth against the pain in my joints as I did so, and tried to piece the scene together. We weren't dressed only in our morphing outfits, so we hadn't been in a fight or anything. (I quickly checked to make sure I was wearing mine under my clothes; I was, but it told me nothing. I wore it almost everywhere these days.) We were in some kind of cell, wide enough to contain us without obvious discomfort but way too crowded to be actually comfortable. The ceiling was high enough for Jake or Ax to stand without scraping their head or stalk eyes, but barely. Either lucky sizing, or disturbingly customised sizing. There were no doors or windows; I could see clearly, but I couldn't tell where the light was coming from. I raised one hand. There was a disconcerting lack of shadows. I cupped my hands, creating a little pocket of shade.

The walls. The light was coming from the walls. And the floor and ceiling.

“Yeerks?” I asked uncertainly. “It's the only explanation.” Helmacrons would be taunting us, Ellimist or Crayak would just freeze time and come to Earth (or send the Crayak's flunky) to talk to us, and nobody else who had any kind of issue with us had fancy glowing-wall-doorless-room technology. Well, the Chee probably did. But Erek knew how to use a telephone. Besides, my bones hurt, and I was pretty sure Chee weren't allowed to do that.

Of course, it could be entirely new alien weirdness crashing the party. It wasn't as if we had enough to deal with already or anything.

<Perhaps,> Ax said uncertainly. <But I find it... unlikely that Yeerks would have the power to take us all so neatly. Otherwise they would have done so previously.>

“Maybe they just learned who we were.”

<They would not need to know who you were to take us in battle. Besides, they would have infested us while we were unconscious.> Ax's mental voice trembled with revulsion at the thought. He carefully picked up Tobias so that he couldn't be stepped on and clambered to his hooves.

“If it was Visser Three, sure,” I mumbled.

<What do you mean?> Ax asked quickly.

Ax wouldn't be my first choice of person to share my theory with, but there wasn't a broad range of subjects at hand to switch to, so with a sigh, I explained. “Visser One knows who we... well, who I am. She could've found out the others, I guess, if she had people follow me and was careful not to get caught. And her plans seem to be a lot less... direct than Visser Three's. She might be planning to trade us, or she might need our help with something, so she put us in a situation where we can't really refuse.”

<Does she currently have the resources for that sort of thing?>

“I don't know. She's a Visser. She'd have to be good at recovering from bad situations or she'd be dead, right?” I swallowed and looked away, and hoped Ax didn't notice.

“Is anybody hurt?” Cassie asked in a half-asleep voice. She sat up with a groan.

“Cassie!” I crouched down next to her. “Glad you could join us.”

“Where are we?” she asked as she checked Rachel's breathing. “Are the others okay?”

<Prince Jake and Tobias appear to be fine,> Ax said. <I know little of Earth biology, but they are breathing.>

“Good. Anything else we can heal.”

There was a sudden flapping noise, and Ax quickly lifted Tobias away from him in the manner of somebody who'd had a red-tailed hawk in their arms wake up and panic before. Tobias flapped up as close to the ceiling as he could get, took stock of the situation, and landed as gently as he could on Ax's shoulder. <Where are – >

“We don't know,” I said. I was inching back from Rachel as she woke up. This turned out to be a good choice, because the first thing she did was roll to her feet in one graceful move and lift her arms as if ready to strike out at the threat.

“Some kind of cell,” Cassie said, helping Jake to his feet. “Does anybody else have aching joints?”

**THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE TRANSPORT WILL WEAR OFF IN TIME.**

The way that the voice, from everywhere and nowhere all at once, seemed to just appear in our minds was very familiar. But the voice itself wasn't.

<Ellimist!> Ax looked angry. But he didn't bother trying to pinpoint the source.

“No,” Cassie said slowly. “This is... something new.”

“Where are we?” Jake asked angrily. “What's going on?”

**YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.**


	2. Ax tangles with tree-things

My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

It is very rare that anybody uses my complete name any more. My human friends call me Ax, and I rarely speak to anybody else. I have become accustomed to being stranded on Earth, so far from home.

Which was why it was somewhat startling to wake up in an unfamiliar place with a decidedly inhuman voice shouting in my head that we had been 'chosen'.

“Chosen for what?” Jake asked. “Who are you?”

**YOU HAVE BEEN OBSERVED AND APPROVED IN YOUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT. PREPARE TO BE TESTED.**

“Oh man, I hate tests,” Marco groaned. “If it's algebra, you can save yourself some time and just give me an F already.”

“How do you have trouble with algebra?” Rachel asked, puzzled. “You're the one always talking about probability and calculating distances to planets and stuff.”

“Not all of us can win Outstanding Student Awards and fight mind-controlling aliens, Xena.”

“Guys,” Jake said. “Focus.”

<On what?> Tobias asked. <Nothing's happen – >

The far wall of the small cell disappeared, as did the roof. Even finding ourselves in the company of new, clearly hostile beings, I felt somewhat relieved at that; being so enclosed had been making me nervous. In the open, I could move properly, I could manoeuvre and fight properly.

The new beings looked a little like walking trees, or like the peelable cheese twigs sometimes shown in These Messages. They were dark green tubes perhaps as tall as my length, head-to-blade, and as wide as my armspan. The top third of their bodies split into several thick tubes that waved around when they moved. I couldn't see how they were moving about, but their gait was too smooth for most forms of leg movement that I was familiar with. They had no obvious sensory organs. But their tube protrusions all had long, dark spurs on their ends, and as soon as they noticed us, they began gliding along the floor towards us, those spurs whipping out.

**DEFEND YOURSELVES.**

“Battle morphs,” Prince Jake ordered. “Ax, Tobias, buy us time.”

I felt Tobias take off from my shoulder as I charged at our attackers, hooves rattling unnaturally on metal. The only metal surface I'm used to walking on is a spaceship floor, and one does not run in a spaceship corridor unless there is an emergency. The nearest tree-thing struck – fast, but not faster than an Andalite. I blocked the strike with my tail, blade rattling against spur, and sidestepped. I could hear Tobias' battle-cry as he dove at another of the creatures, dodging spur-tipped tentacles, raking his claws along them to leave deep, green-bleeding gashes. I couldn't spare more than one eye to check on Tobias, though; I had my own fight to worry about.

The tree-creature I was fighting had five spur-tipped tentacles. I only had one tailblade. But the tentacles must lack manoeuvrability, because if I remained in the same place then it only struck with one at a time. Feints were difficult; moving to the side would not alter the course of a tentacle striking at me, it would merely strike my new position with another one at the same time. A lucky slice lopped off the end of one, which was harder than expected; the creature's flesh was stiff as bark and my tailblade barely went through it. Probably no point in trying to attack the main body, then; it would only be better protected.

The creature spun so that I was facing fresh tentacles. I tried to sidestep to get back to its injured side; it struck, and landed a gouge along my right flank. The cut left by the spur was shallow, but it burned. My back leg stopped moving properly.

<I am injured,> I reported to my allies. <I do not know if I can continue to hold this creature off for much longer.>

Another strike; my back leg didn't respond in time to dodge. New fire erupted in my flank. The third strike was fended off by my tail-blade. I needed to get creative, and soon. What did I have? My tail. Most of my legs; not helpful. My arms; too weak to be useful without a weapon. I didn't have teeth or claws or...

Well...

The next strike went for my chest, and I had to step back a little to fend it off. I smacked the tentacle upward, out of the way, and then I took a step. Not left or right; trying to get a better position on such a creature was impossible. I stepped forward. Then, as I'd seen a horse do on television once, I balanced all my weight on my back legs and pulled the rest of my body off the ground.

I hate being on two legs. It is impossibly unbalanced, especially since my right leg protested at the weight. But I had my tail for balance, and I was only in the air for a brief moment before resting my front legs against the creature. I dragged my hooves down, imitating their motion in grass as I walked, and the tiny, specialised spurs and teeth that were so efficient at grinding up the grass as I walked minced against rough, barky skin until my tread was slickened with alien blood. I wanted nothing more than to break off and shake my hooves clean of the stuff, but I had only a few more seconds before the creature adapted to my action. I “bit” it again.

The tentacle I had pressed in underneath descended once more, and I swept up my tail-blade to block it again, but instead of striking, the creature took advantage of my attention to spin its entire body. I fell sideways, unable to balance on two legs. As I struggled to get up, spurs lashed out across my skin. One; pain blossomed down my back, and my left arm stopped moving properly. Two; a strip of blue-furred skin was torn from my back. Three; across my left flank. It was becoming hard to think.

“Tseer!”

A small shape darted in above the creature, and it was no longer interested in me.

“Raaawr!” A grizzly bear charged one of the other plant creatures. A tiger, wolf and gorilla joined the fray.

<They're vulnerable in the middle, between the tentacles!> Tobias advised.

<How do we get in there?>

<We could try pushing them over!>

I fought to focus my mind, to get up. We were in the middle of battle. There would be time for pain and confusion later. But I couldn't seem to find my legs. Around me, blood, green and red and blue-black, splashed along the steel floor. I could still taste the stuff in my feet. If only I could _find_ my feet. My friends shouted in my head, occasionally screaming in pain, occasionally roaring in triumph. It was barely more than one Earth minute before the activity stopped.

<Morph out and heal, everyone,> Prince Jake commanded. I was already in my natural form, so I awaited further orders.

<Ax,> Cassie said gently, <you should morph something to heal your injuries.>

Ah. Of course.

I focused on the human within me. If was one of the morphs I was most accustomed to. That's how long I'd been on Earth. As my wounds closed, my mind cleared. I regained my focus just as Rachel punched the air with her newly-human fist. “Yeah! That's what you get for messing with the Animorphs!” She shared a grin with Marco. It was he who had named the group, back before I arrived.

**TEST IS COMPLETE. ALL SUBJECTS FOUND SUITABLE. DESIGNATION 'ANIMORPHS'.**


	3. Cassie draws conclusions

My name is Cassie. And I was tired of pulling bits of alien flesh out of my own teeth.

The real problem is that humans have teeny-tiny jaws and the teeth all mash together when you demorph from something with a sensible face, like a wolf. Well, the actual real problem was that we'd been transported to some weird metal place and had to fight yet another new species of alien. But either way, it ended in my pulling fibrous shreds of alien out of my teeth while making sure everyone was demorphing okay and hadn't passed out or anything.

“This is insane,” Marco muttered, shaking his head. He normally only says that about things that are somehow our fault.

“Where are we?” I asked for about the billionth time. I looked at Ax. So did everyone else.

“Ax?” Jake asked. “What were those things?”

<I do not know. They were no species I recognise.>

“And this place?”

<I know of several species who can manipulate adaptive metal, including the Yeerks. There are most likely many more that can do so that I have not heard of. And we have few other details to go on.>

<Our captor talks like the Ellimist,> Tobias said. <But it isn't the Ellimist.>

“I'm sure he could disguise his voice if he wanted,” Marco pointed out.

<Yeah, but why bother?>

“Crayak?” Jake asked.

“Crayak would be way more direct,” Rachel said.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

The room around us rippled and changed once more. I instinctively grabbed Jake's arm to keep balance, but the floor didn't move. The walls closed in, shrinking our room to its previous size and pushing us back. Then a different wall disappeared. We all turned apprehensively; I was already focusing on the wolf inside me. But no threat awaited us.

The room had merely doubled in size; a rectangle, as if a copy of it had been placed next to it and the wall between them knocked down. There were two wide slits in the wall. Doorways. As a group, we ventured over.

The first doorway led to a small bathroom, with a single tap leading into a large tub and a very primitive toilet in once corner. I turned the tap on; the water was room temperature. An experimental taste told me that it tasted drinkable, although there are a lot of water toxins that humans can't taste.

The second room looked like... well, like some sort of gymnasium built for spider-man. It was about the size of our original room, but the ceiling was much higher. Long cables stretched between walls at odd angles, some of them diagonal, some vertical or horizontal. There were also several long poles with bars protruding from them at apparent random. I ran a hand along a cable. It just felt like regular steel cable.

“Okay,” Marco said, “if anybody has figured out what's going on, this would be a great time to say something.”

I glanced at him, then at each of my friends. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. I just didn't want to say it, in case I was wrong.

What we were in was the sort of place that wasn't really acceptable in America any more, but they still existed, normally in the hands of failing businesses or people who loved money more than animals. The lack of anything obviously earthlike was a bad sign. But the little gymnasium and bathroom were good signs. I wrapped my hand around a cable; it closed over it easily, as if my hand had been made for it. And it had. Evolution had moulded my hands, through the trial and error of thousands of generations of my ancestors, to grip things just like that cable, and pull myself among them.

I didn't really want to say it. But somebody had to.

“This is a very primitive animal habitat,” I said slowly. “The kind that animal welfare activists would side-eye, but it's technically sufficient.”

Everyone was silent for about five seconds as the implications of that sank in.

“Oh. Wonderful.” That was Marco, of course. “Never mind that we're in the middle of protecting our planet from aliens, we totally have time to deal with this sort of thing as well.”

I ignored him. The important thing to do now was get home. And that meant figuring out who our captors were and making an escape plan.

Ax didn't recognise them. That was... a definite drawback. But not necessarily game over. We could still learn something. For example, their communication suggested that they knew we were sentient. That was probably a good thing; assuming, of course, that they cared about something like that. They may or may not understand English. They hadn't responded directly to anything we'd said, but _we_ certainly understood _them_. They might just be ignoring us. But, come to think of it, they'd picked up on the name "Animorphs", so they must've recognised the rest of our words for context.

And they'd made us fight the weird tree aliens. That was a little confusing. And a very, very bad sign. Images of dogfighting and cockfighting rings rose in my mind; I pushed them away. No reason to get scared of hypotheticals. We had enough real problems to deal with. I rubbed my neck. My joints still hurt, even after the morphing. And there was just too much going on. Too much stuff to process at once.

“Okay,” Rachel said. “We need an escape plan. Ax, is there a way to break through these walls?”

<Not without an ally in the control room.>

“Right,” Jake said, “ideas?”

We were all silent. How do you break out of a place like that?

I glanced back out at the main room. Everything was quiet. And I was suddenly very, very tired.

“I'm going to take a nap,” I said decisively. “That's my plan.”

Everyone stared at me.

“You want to nap?” Rachel asked. “Now?”

“Is there a better time?”

<We should escape as soon as possible,> Ax said.

“Before whatever captured us comes to do... whatever they're going to do,” Jake agreed.

I waved one arm to indicate our new quarters. “Look at this place,” I said. “You don't set up something like this if you're just going to hold somebody a few hours. They would've just left us in the little cell in that case. You set up something like this if you want to hold somebody long-term. Days at least. More likely weeks, months. And we'll definitely need to sleep at some point, I'm tired, and we could be thrown into another random fight at any moment. I'd rather not be exhausted when we are. So yes. I am going to take a nap.”

Everyone looked at each other.

<I'll be lookout,> Tobias volunteered.

“Right,” Jake said wearily. “Current mission: nap.”

“Let's do it!” Rachel said, in mockery of her normal enthusiasm.

We gathered our clothes to pile over us, found a corner, and laid down. The room didn't have a bed, so a pile of scared, confused Animorphs would have to be good enough.

To be honest, I was glad of it.


	4. Jake waits

My name is Jake.

I spend a lot more time screaming than most teenage boys.

“Aaargh! Aaaargh!”

There's not much else you can do when Visser Three pins you down with two huge limbs, bends over you, opens his massive mouth...

“Aaaaargh!!”

I struggled, but he held me firmly. I couldn't move.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!”

“Jake! Jake, it's just a nightmare! You're okay. It's just a nightmare.”

That wasn't the Visser's voice.

Cassie.

I opened my eyes and looked into hers. Cassie and Rachel were holding me down, one arm each. Marco sat on my feet. There were scratch marks on Rachel's face. She didn't seem to care that they were bleeding.

They let go of my hands, and I checked my own fingernails. The blood on them must be Rachel's.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It's ok,” Rachel shrugged. “We've all had those dreams.”

“Are you okay?” Cassie asked.

I sat up and shrugged. “Same old, same old.” I couldn't afford to look vulnerable. If I broke down, the others might too, and we weren't in a position where we could afford to break down.

I glanced about the room. Plain metal. It hadn't been part of the dream. Pity.

“How long were we out?” I asked.

<Almost five and a half of your hours,> Ax said. He glared at the metal floor as if it personally affronted him.

“That's... actually a pretty good sleep,” Marco said. “You know. For us.”

<I will watch over Tobias while he sleeps now,> Ax said, <unless you need me for anything, Prince Jake?>

“Huh? No. Go ahead. And don't call me prince.” I rubbed my temples. The sleep actually had made me feel a lot better. My joints didn't ache any more, either. Well, except for the ones that didn't like sleeping on a cold hard surface.

<Yes, Prince Jake.> Ax followed Tobias into the room of cables. I glanced around at my remaining Animorphs.

“So. Escape?”

“We could try breaking everything until we're too much trouble to keep around,” Rachel suggested.

“The only stuff to break is the stuff in here,” Marco pointed out. “I don't think our captors care if we tear down all the cables. Which, by the way, I don't think even your elephant could actually do.”

“Air,” Cassie said suddenly. “Air must be coming in somewhere. We find a vent and crawl out as insects.”

“We have no idea how long the vent system would take to get through,” Marco said.

“Well if we're still in there after nearly an hour, we turn back.”

“Okay,” I said, “classic vent escape. Any other ideas?”

We dithered back and forth for awhile. Tried to locate a vent as insects, and failed. According to Ax, the air might diffuse in through the walls. We couldn't detect any currents on the walls, even as spiders and flies.

I don't think any of us really knew how to feel. We'd been in combat before, and we'd been captured before. We'd had nothing going on before, too. But we'd never been in enemy custody with absolutely nothing to do. We'd been in situations where escape seemed hopeless, but we were usually minutes or hours from being killed by Visser Three when that happened; escape was urgent. If Cassie was right, we weren't looking at any kind of immediate deadline this time.

We were just brought somewhere unknown by an enemy we didn't recognise, and left there.

And it wasn't like time travel or being dumped on an alien planet or anything. That always meant constant danger. Not sitting around in a room.

It was stressful, in its own way.

About “nine of your hours” after I woke screaming, a small patch of wall dissolved, revealing a little recess about two and a half feet cubed. Inside were six small trays. Four of them contained some kind of pale mush, like chunky mashed potato; one contained pink strips that looked somewhat like meat; and the last something green and fibrous. I scooped up some pale mush on my finger, and Cassie caught my wrist.

“We don't know how much they know about human biology,” she warned.

“Do we have any other options?”

Cassie must have been as hungry as I was. She let go. I raised the mush to my nose and sniffed, but I couldn't smell anything. Slowly, I stuck it in my mouth. It tasted a little of salt, and not much else.

“Well?” Rachel asked. “What's it like?”

I shrugged. She reached past me and grabbed two trays; white mush for herself, meat strips for Tobias.

“No,” Marco said. “I'm not playing this game. Nope.”

“We don't know how long we'll be stuck here, Marco,” Cassie pointed out.

“I don't care. I'm not laying down and playing along.” He sat on the floor and crossed his arms stubbornly.

“Suit yourself,” Rachel shrugged. “I want all my strength when we find whoever put us here.”

The mush was palatable, but barely. If I hadn't been very hungry, I don't think I would've been able to swallow it all. Even after I was finished, I was still hungry. I handed Marco the remaining plate of white mush. He glared at me, but eventually started eating.

<To be fair, we've been in situations worse than this,> Tobias said. <Remember when we time travelled to the Cretaceous period?>

“If I never have to eat dinosaur again it'll be too soon,” Rachel grumbled.

<Why would you ever need to eat dinosaur again?>

“Or the Arctic,” Cassie said quietly. The Arctic had not been fun.

“We should start out own series. 'The Animorphs' World Tour through time and space'.”

“Leera.”

“The Howler thing.”

“'The Animorphs' Interplanetary tour through time and space'.”

They were right, in a way. Wherever we were, nothing was trying to kill us.

Of course, we weren't fighting yeerks. Our planet was defenceless. We needed to get home. We had people to protect.

But in the meantime, I leaned back against the wall and enjoyed the fact that nobody was trying to kill us.


	5. Rachel deals with it

My name is Rachel.

I'm just your average teenage girl. I like gymnastics. I like shopping. And I hate doing nothing.

It wasn't long before I was pacing across the ridiculous tiny metal room, considering turning into an elephant and charging for the wall just on the off-chance it would have some kind of effect. (Okay, maybe not a completely average teenage girl.) After all, was there any reason not to try it? Worst case scenario, I hurt myself and demorphed. Big whoop. Best case, I tore a hole in the wall and we escaped.

But it was reasonable to assume we were in space. Or zero-space. Or maybe on some planet where we couldn't breathe. How could I be sure that carving a hole in the wall wouldn't kill all of us?

So I paced. I paced and I waited for something to happen.

We grew tired, and slept. We got hungrier, and more food came. It wasn't enough to fill us up completely. Whether our captors didn't know that, or had limited supply, or were just cruel, I didn't know.

“Aaaargh!” I slammed my fist into the wall and, with vague detachment, noticed the crack of at least two bones in my hand. The others, who had been discussing some meaningless school assignment, jumped and stared at me. “We have to do something!” I insisted. “We can't just... just sit here!”

“You hurt yourself,” Cassie said, walking over. I waved her away.

“I'll heal it in a bit. But we can't just sit here, we have to...”

“To what, Rachel?” Jake asked, his voice mild. “What would you have us do?”

“I don't know! Anything!”

“Really? Because we've discussed what to do. At length. We've gone back and forth over the issue dozens of times. We don't have any morphs that can help us. Ax has no tech that can help us. We're well and truly trapped.”

“While our planet is left to the Yeerks!”

“Yes. While our planet is left to the Yeerks.”

“We must all be missing at home by now,” Marco groaned. “My dad must be freaking out.”

<When we do get out of here, we're going to need to come up with excuses for that,> Tobias said. <You guys all go missing at once and then show up again? People are going to ask questions.>

“Right. And we should give them a chance to, by getting home.”

“Do you have a plan, then?” Marco asked. “Because at this point, I'm behind even a Rachel plan.”

“... No. No, I don't have one.” I sat down, and thought about my mom. I could just see her, throwing herself into trying to find me. Hounding police. Making posters. Trying to track down where I'd been last. The last thing I remembered doing on Earth was shopping at the mall, but that information wasn't going to help her. My dad would take some time off work to come back into town, to look. My parents had never really fought, but I could just see the subtle levels of blame that would come out of this. 'You were supposed to take care of her!' 'Maybe she ran away. You left her, after all.' I liked to think that they wouldn't be that petty, but...

And Jordan and Sara. How would they deal with this? It wouldn't have started yet, but if I stayed missing, rumours would spread around school. They'd be targets of curiosity, surrounded by drama. And they'd miss me. I knew they would.

Melissa, who didn't know her parents loved her. She was on a planet defenceless to Yeerk invasion now. The instant Visser Three no longer needed Chapman's cooperation, she'd be taken.

A planetful of people, just waiting to be enslaved. Family, friends, strangers. Men, women, children. And we weren't there. We weren't fighting.

And there was nothing we could do.

They say that the best defence is a good offence. That's only physically true about half the time, in my experience. But emotionally, there's nothing like _doing something_ to combat fear and uncertainty. There's nothing like going for the throat to help you fight your fear.

It doesn't make the fear go away. But it puts it aside for a little while.

My hand hurt. I needed to morph to heal it. I needed fresh clothes. I needed to find a way home. I needed to do pretty much anything except sit on the floor and sulk.

So when the far wall dissolved and I saw what was beyond it, I leapt right into action.


End file.
